My new game is all militaristic, with me playing Germany for the science, on a standard-size P map. Expanding has been challenging, but at least defense of Berlin will not be so hard as it is surrounded by mountains, and I have tons of extra gems to trade.
Germany is pretty much tailor-made for a Space win: Militaristic for aggressive early expansion, and Scientific for the cheap Libs and Unis in all the land you'll have captured; those traits also give lots of possible GA-triggering Wonder-combos (e.g. Colossus + GWalls, or Colossus + SunTzu), for when you start building those (Ducts + Courthouses +) Libs + Unis in the Middle Ages.
But I would hope you'll be able to expand Berlin's borders
much further out than its adjacent(?) Mountains!
If I don't want to get a particular victory (or, especially, loss), I just disable that particular VC. I started doing that ever since I got stuck with a surprise diplomatic defeat, even though I'd have won the SR (IIRC).
That always kind of feels like cheating for me, since the AI isn't really 'good' at any VCs except Conquest/Domination (and maybe Space, at Emp+). I don't remember ever being Culturally defeated in an epic game (up to Emp), and Diplo-losses can/should always be entirely avoidable (at least at Chieftain-Regent) by building the UN yourself, allowing you to control whether or not an election is held (and possibly salvaging a victory if a Space-win looks like being untenable for whatever reason)—and at Emp+, any AI-Civs still remaining at the beginning of the Modern Age tend to hate each other so much, that the elections almost always get cancelled anyway, no matter who built the UN!
So I always leave all the default VCs turned on in my games. But each to his own, I guess...
In the last game, I hit the 20K city, but would have hit the 80K in another couple turns, anyway. One victory I've never managed or tried was Diplo.
Diplo's basically a Science-victory for people who'd rather play more nicely with the AI-Civs than is required for a Space-win, or whose expansion has been rather more limited by the map than they'd have preferred (e.g. maybe if they started on a smallish Continent, or on an Arch-map). I've done it a couple of times, but it's kind of a 'cheap' way to win, because the way the AI-Civs vote depends entirely on their attitudes to the candidate Civ-Leaders
on the turn of the Election only, which — provided the human player has built up a reasonably strong economy (and/or has kept his trade-rep intact) — makes them laughably easy to manipulate.
Basically all you have to do is (build the UN) and then gift (i.e. bribe!) a sufficient majority of AI-Civs up to
Polite or
Gracious on the turn before an election is possible (i.e. the turn before the UN is built, and then every 11T thereafter), so that they vote for you, rather than your most likely rival. Just signing an MPP+RoP is often enough to do this, but an obsolete Tech or a Lux (or 2) won't be sniffed at either. And if you 're already at war with — or simultaneously declare war on — the other UNGS-candidate(s) to make all your new friends 'Furious' with him — your election's pretty much a shoo-in.
(Of course, now there's this other stuff in Conquests that I have not explored yet...)
AFAIK, the 'new' VCs (victory-points, regicide, wonders, etc.) and game rules (e.g. accelerated production) were actually introduced in PlayTheWorld, because they're primarily intended for Multiplayer games, to make them shorter. No 'new' VCs were added to the default Conquests solo epic-game rules, as such: the only 'change' I know about was to re-jig the Civ-wide Culture-limits to depend on Map-size (on the grounds that in Vanilla, it was a helluva lot easier/quicker to get 100K on a Huge than a Tiny Map!).
If you want to explore the new VCs, I'd recommend having a go at the Firaxis Conquests-Scenarios, which can all be played solo, and
do each use some of the new VCs (as well as or inplace of the 'default' VCs). So far, I've played/ won:
- 'Mesopotamia' — uses Victory-points (based on enemy units killed, towns founded and/or total population-points grown, Wonders built, etc.), and the Wonder-Victory (winner = Civ with the highest score when the last GWonder — usually the GLight — has been built)
- 'Sengoku' — uses Regicide (sending Stealthy, Invisible, Hidden Nationality Ninjas to assassinate your neighbouring Shoguns is great fun!)
- 'Rise of Rome' — uses Histograph/ Victory-points
- 'Fall of Rome' — uses Mass Regicide (or Elimination, can't remember which)
- 'Mesoamerica' — uses VPs (including Sacrifices!)
- 'Three Sisters' — uses Capture the Princess/Sacrifices
I had not thought of a "combat-settler" before, but that does make sense for next time, given the opportunity.
If you're running a Republic, then you can cash-rush Settlers(Foreign) out of captured towns (after all the Resistors are quelled), and then keep them in reserve (maybe in your Capital) until you need them — they cost no unit-maintenance. As an added bonus, you get rid of most of those troublesome foreigners, without necessarily having to starve them out.
Production costs are max. 160 gold (1 'short-rushed' Worker = 80 gold + 80 gold for the other 20 shields; takes 1T), 1 shield + 116 gold (takes 2T), or 1 Forest-chop + 60-80 gold (takes 1-5T, depending on whether the Forest is roaded, and/or how many Workers/Slaves do the chopping).
You're doing better than me then, because I've never yet won a Culture-vic, at any level! Tried for a 100K once with the Vanilla-Babs on a Standard 70% Continents at Regent, but couldn't even manage that (bloomin' French already reached >50K) — so I went to Space instead...! 
